Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

Responsive - this means we looked for evidence that the service met people’s needs.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good.

The service worked well with other agencies to support continuity and coordination of care. Staff held regular multi-agency meetings and worked closely with primary care and other services to support safe transitions, including joint working at discharge. Staff took steps to meet communication needs, including the use of interpreters and easy read information. The service encouraged feedback, managed complaints in line with trust processes, and showed learning from concerns, particularly around communication. The service also understood the needs of people who may experience inequality in outcomes and had systems in place to monitor and respond to this.

The trust had not consistently meet national targets for timely crisis response. People were not always seen within expected timeframes, which meant some did not receive urgent support when they needed it. While the trust had recognised these issues and had started quality improvement work, performance at the time of the assessment remained below expected standards.

Staff spoke positively about involving people in decisions about their care. This was not always reflected in care records. Not all people had care plans in place, and where plans existed, they were not always personalised or clearly based on people’s views, wishes and involvement.

This service scored 68 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service did not always make sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they did not always work in partnership with people, to decide how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Staff told us they aimed to ensure people who were using the service were at the centre of their care and treatment. However, this was not evident in care records seen.

Of the ten care records we viewed across the crisis and home treatment teams, only 5 care plans were located. Five people using the service did not have a care plan in place. Only 2 of the 5 care plans located were personalised and reflected the individual’s needs and preferences. Care plans we saw were brief and did not demonstrate active collaboration. For example, we saw a care plan which stated “2 weeks of support for medication”. On another it said “poor sleep”. Clear interventions were lacking.

There was limited evidence of people’s voice within the care plans reviewed. Staff we spoke with told us how important it was to work with people and reflect their views, feelings and wishes. Of the 10 records reviewed, staff had only recorded in 5 patient or carer involvement. If people had been involved, this was not clear.

The service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity.

The service held monthly meetings with relevant agencies to ensure care being provided was as joined up and least restrictive as possible. Examples of other agencies included the Local Authority and the emergency services.

Staff in crisis and home treatment teams worked with colleagues in primary care to ensure relevant information was provided upon discharge. This included joint appointments to aid the transition process. The electronic system had a section where staff attached all correspondence to and from the patients GP surgery.

We saw evidence of multi-agency working through care records reviewed, observations undertaken during the assessment, and confirmation via feedback from people who had used the service.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

Staff could access written information in different formats and in various languages to help people understand their care and treatment. For people whose first language was not English, staff booked interpreters, either face to face, or via telephone to support understanding.

Staff could access and offer easy read information about treatment options, medicines and wider available support, as required.

The service made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. The trust had a formal complaints procedure which staff were aware of.

Over the last 12 months, this service had received 7 complaints, relating to Coventry crisis / home treatment team (2); North Warwickshire crisis / home treatment team (3) and the health-based place of safety (2). The key theme of the complaints was around communication from staff / the way people had been spoken too.

Of the complaints, 2 investigations were in progress; one was on hold, and 4 had been investigated and upheld. These all related to communication. In response to the complaints, communication and conduct had been discussed within staff supervision, and where appropriate, during team meetings. Additionally, managers could arrange specific training to individual staff around strengthening communication.

The service had received 10 compliments within the same timeframe, relating to the 111 service (1); Coventry crisis team (8) and the Northwest Warwickshire crisis team (1). The service encouraged people who had used services to share their views of their experience of their journeys with the trust. At the time of our assessment, a person had presented their experience within the crisis service at the trust board meeting.

The trust was strengthening the support of carers. The service was participating in a national quality improvement scheme, run by the Carers Trust known as ‘The triangle of care’. This is a scheme which promotes safety, recovery and wellbeing by including and supporting unpaid carers. In December 2025 the trust had achieved a ‘star1’, meaning they had assessed their crisis service against the 6 key standards. The trust was working to achieve ‘star 2’ in 2027

The service did not make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

All people requiring urgent care should be seen by community health crisis teams within 24 hours of referral. The trust was not achieving this. Data reviewed from the trust showed the number of people seen within this timeframe had been between 20% - 46% between February 2025 and March 2026. Many staff we spoke with in the Coventry crisis team said they had failed to meet expectations.

The trust told us this team had embarked on a quality improvement initiative to increase the number of people seen within 24 hours. Early indications within the Coventry team was averaging 75% of people seen within a 24-hour period. We note this was a significant improvement, but still targets were not being met, indicating people were not receiving the urgent care and treatment they needed. Senior staff we spoke with confirmed the trust were planning to roll this initiative out to all crisis services in the future, to improve timely care.

However, the trust were seeing the majority of very urgent referrals to the crisis teams within 4 hours, in line with national guidance. We reviewed data between April 2025 and January 2026. This showed the trust had achieved meeting this target between 93% and 98% each month. The trust was unable to provide data for February and March 2026 due to the ongoing transfer of the electronic system.

The service had a 24-hour urgent mental health helpline (111 option 2 service) for professionals and people who used services. The trust provided data on calls received via the 111 service between April 2025 and March 2026. A total of 23,773 calls were received. Staff answered 86.4% of calls, with 71.4% picked up within 60 seconds. This was above the national average. Abandoned calls accounted for 13.6% of calls received. Abandoned calls had peaked from the beginning of 2026. The trust continued to work to ensure they had adequate call cover.

We requested data which shows the length of stay of people in the health-based place of safety (HBPoS). The trust was only able to provide data from January 2026, acknowledging the length of stay had not effectively been recorded prior to this date. The trust now had a system in place to capture this. Most people had not remained in the HBPoS for over 24 hours. In January, 41 patients used the service and 2.4% stayed over 24 hours; in February, 38 patients used the service and 2.6% stayed over 24 hours; in March, 39 patients used the service and 10.3% stayed over 24 hours. Two patients had been held for over 36 hours. Staff followed internal processes to safely care for them and recorded this clearly in care records.

Staff and leaders actively listened to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this.

Staff were trained in equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights, with the trust compliance target of 90% being exceeded across this service.

Managers recorded and monitored ethnicity data of people who used services so they could ensure care and treatment did not put people from ethnic minority groups at a disadvantage. This included the use of the Mental Health Act and restrictive interventions such as restraint. The service had undertaken equality impact assessments of their policies and procedures to ensure they did not place vulnerable people or people with protected characteristics at a disadvantage.

The trust worked to improve services for people from diverse, ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds, participating inNHS England’s patient and carer race equality framework (PCREF). PCREF is a partnership with local services, community and voluntary organisations, people who use services, carers, families and communities. The overarching aim is for services to work together, making the framework part of standard practice within NHS trusts.

People were supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future. Staff across the service supported people’s discharge.

Staff ensured relevant healthcare professionals were involved in planning the care and treatment of people with complex needs. Staff made referrals to other services or teams within the trust and recorded this within care records. Staff communicated with relevant services to co-ordinate appropriate follow up care in the community and ensured the persons GP had been informed of any plans.

We saw staff had liaised with services which could aid people’s social circumstances such as employment or housing.

Although not all care records viewed had discharge plans, staff ensured that ongoing plans were recorded as each person improved and was no longer in need of crisis services. Staff aimed to discharge people from the crisis team / home treatment teams once they had been stabilised or admitted to an inpatient bed. Staff had recorded discussions about future plans.